When Dawn Breaks
by Andthentherewasmel
Summary: Emma is Charlie Swan's niece; a pessimistic optimist and unafraid of falling down the rabbit hole. Alienated by the world she left behind, Emma is just for a new life in Forks with her uncle. However, when dark forces arise from the hidden world around her, Emma must discover the most unlikely of friendships and discover the true strength inside of her. Edward/OC.


**Your time is limited.**

**So don't go wasting it living someone else's life.**  
**Don't be trapped by dogma,**  
**Which is living with the results of other people's thinking.**  
**Don't let the noise of other people's opinions drown out**  
**Your own inner voice.**

**And most important,**  
**Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition,**  
**They somehow already know what you**  
**Truly want to become.**  
**Everything else is secondary.**  
**-Steve Jobs, 2005**

Chapter 1-  
Into the unexpected

Beating, throbbing spatters of amber gold slid across my skin as my eyes crunched together; squirming under their peach umbrellas from the warm rays beating down on them. Slightly wet hair was pressed like matted fur over my beaded forehead, sticky and damp as though tears had plaited themselves in my hair, nestling comfortably there, bundled together in the sleepy heat of the summer. I ran a hand through it, sighing out some cool, musty air, and in return, swallowing a thick chunk of humid oxygen.  
I loved and hated summertime's; they were always so unpredictable, so annoyingly inconsistent, unexplainably beautiful, as upbeat and sombre as the tune of a piano. The unexpectedness both exhilarated me and cast me down as though I were a leaf being beaten by the wind's savage mood swings.

Only minutes ago it had been awful- the sky had been a horrible swelling black, rain beating down on the small car I was squashed in- throwing me across some sort of road and now-

Now, the sun was blistering, the air thick and humid, the beaten grey motorway sweating beautifully out a rainbow tinted wave of gloom up into the air, engulfing the barbed breeze in its sodden jaws. I couldn't complain though, it had brought a grin to my face, thinking of the bumbling little weather man who had so proudly rambled about the sun definitely coming out today, whilst everyone I'd met had complained saying he was wrong as usual. I smiled inwardly, I hoped wherever he was, he was making a toast to himself with a well deserved, if not rewarding, smile on his face.  
The humidity was the worst thing about the sudden change though, according to the coffee and tea stained thermometer, nibbled and as dog eared after being written all over in a consuming marker pen, it was only twenty something Celsius, but I felt so fevered that for a moment I deluded myself that my skin had peeled off and the car's pathetic yellow light that despondently flickered had suddenly erupted dangerously into brutal red light; making me swelter like a chicken in the oven.

My badly picked clothes, although baggy and several sizes too big; most of them men's clothing I had thrown into the basket with some spare money, were so warm they were sticking to me like a swarm of bees to honey.  
But I wasn't even sweating; I could just feel the imaginary bugs crawling with their blisteringly warm legs all over my skin.  
I yawned from the sleepy warmth, removing my hand from where it had been stuck to the steering wheel to rub my eyes before dropping it back lamely to where it had been; eyes slipping drowsily beneath their pale blankets and dark bed post eyelashes for a few moments before snapping back open to watch the sweltering road.  
I sighed, reaching backwards to grab a drink from the rucksack messily thrown on the back of the backseat. I was only then I realised, which I should have earlier, that there was a head resting comfortably on top of the bag, grinning at it, tongue dangling out, sighing out smiling pants for air.

"Freddie." I half laughed, half sighed through dry, sticky, cracked lips. A giggle that dropped into a gruff bark chimed over from the back of the car where I was still reaching back to with one hand; and I half expected a parade of more to follow, mischievous and loud- but no such party danced into the car.  
My bright grey eyes walked up to the blinding gleam of the dusty, grubby mirror hanging from the ceiling of the car, making me squint under the intense glare it threw back at me- but finally after a ridiculous staring match, it dimmed and I caught sight of the sandy coloured ball of fluff sat quite comfortably on the admittedly catastrophically arranged arrangement of plastic bags brimming with 'emergency food' (comfort food really, but nobody needed to know that) and more badly picked clothes and several chewed, destroyed, mangled dog toys.  
I snapped by arm back from the gap between the two front chairs, away from the soft but rough wisps of fur my fingers had tangled in, concentrating on the keeping the wheel in the right position and the car preferably not upside down in a ditch.

A small bark that was similar to a laugh burst out from behind me and I rolled my eyes, catching the sight of my dog, Freddie, drowsily rubbing his eyes with his huge paws, tongue still hanging out of his mouth.  
"Silly dog." I mumbled. A smile sleepily plastered itself on his face and his wagged his tail cheekily at me, grinning- fangs glistening in the igneous plaits of sunlight flowing through the window like marble statues, and he barked again; a defiant expression fixing itself onto his already rascally face.  
I caught sight of him wiggling his bottom and tail in a notion of either happiness or restlessness, panting and I felt a pang of guilt nestle in my chest, whilst usually during the day he loved being in the car, muzzle pressed joyfully against the window watching the streaks of colour and bursts of green signs dance by; but in the heat and humidity of the sudden weather change he was beginning to get, like me, restless and uncomfortable under the scalding hand of the weather.  
It didn't feel right to keep him locked up in the car for much longer in this humidity, and I scanned the road for signs for my destination, but nothing came up- just the same rolling farmland that had been sweeping by for the past hour- except now the barley was golden instead of a vomit like brown.

Yawning I peered over at the dog-eared map neatly placed on the seat beside me, with a few things sliding over it like a chewed biro pen and my old, equally dog-eared MP3 player, and I glanced down at the huge blob of neon orange highlighter I had circled around the point with the tiny words stating  
PORT ANGELES  
It was only a few miles away, so, deciding it would be better to press on; I pushed my foot down on the gas pedal and listened to the engine rumble and mutter angrily as the car trembled into life in the sticky heat, just as listless as me, and trundled forward.  
The grogginess of the car, and its squeaking groans and clunks and clangs of its metal sighing in the heat, trying to breathe in the blubbery, glutinous air, puffing out curls of grey smoke- coughing and choking as though it were a smoker of some disgusting cigarette.  
I rolled down the window, and through the movement of the car, warm but still cooling air flooded the car; drowning both Freddie and I in a wonderful breeze that seemed to eat away the sticky feeling on my clothes, sliding across my skin with a graceful iciness like a snobby queen; leaving a messy trail of Goosebumps on my skin, buzzing and tingling with relief from the blisters of warmth.  
Freddie's face lit up in the mirror and he began wagging his tail excitedly, barks of laughter tumbling from his muzzle, the mountain on which he resided, which could not be described any better than crap wobbling as he did so precariously.  
I could understand his joy at the window being rolled down and the breeze; If I were not driving, I'd probably burst into hysterical laughter in relief from the heat, and although usually his barking would have grated on me in such a stressful stickiness of a summer, I couldn't deny a young dog his joy that I too was feeling.

However, our joy was quickly wiped out, as the car trundled into Port Angeles in the next hour and a half, the weather shockingly withdrew its sunny smile and diminished into rain. And lots of it.  
As quickly as the sun, the humidity, the baking alive feeling had arrived, it disappeared into the rain clouds, as though it had never happened; and I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming, that I hadn't actually deluded myself, that I hadn't been wishing so much for sun- which was ridiculous, I hated any kind of humidity- that my body and mind had granted me that one selfish wish and made me think it was hotter than it was.  
Of course, Freddie's barks and the explosions of rain through the open window onto my map brought me back to reality, and in a panic, as the car squealed to a halt in the gas station; I grabbed the map, clutching it to my chest as I tried to fold it up back into the precise square it had once been, giving up after a few minutes, squashing it into the rucksack which Freddie had leapt off, whining in a plea to escape the still sticky car. I groaned, noticing the streaks of orange highlighter on my stubby fingers, not that having messy hands was much of an surprise to me, it was just I knew the same thing would have happened to the map; and it would now be sobbing orange tears until it dried.

I peered out of the window, the whole car rattling under the vicious beating of the rain and I noticed a man; dressed in a dull, boring suit scuttle over- a what should have been professional but instead tacky looking umbrella gripped above his balding head, where streaks of jet black hair still clung over in a now drenched comb-over, his chubby face drawn out in boredom and distress of having to be outside in such surprising weather.  
He balled his equally chubby hand up into a gentle fist and knocked on the window, which I drew down as quickly as I could; but it was difficult to as the glass slid down, the remaining memories of the warm weather screeched as they were dragged out into the bitter cold, leaving behind goose bumps and flushed cheeks.

"Emma Swan?" he asked in a slightly forced friendly tone, I nodded with a smile, glancing at his name tag, realising he was the man I was to hand the car over to as arranged earlier with the very nice woman named Donna at the airport car hire service.  
"yep, you must be Mr. Biers, err, Donna told me to give you the keys when I got here." He nodded with a wet, polite smile and I fumbled around with the seatbelt, my hands unable to find the release button, making me feel extremely embarrassed, and Freddie decided he would begin pawing at the window, barking madly at Mr. Biers who looked over and chuckled at the pathetic but still adorable sight of the little dog's face pressed to the window like a toddler's.

With a click, I was released from the run-down prison of a car I had been sat in and got out, hit with a huge gust of acerbic wind, hair erupting from its bobble and into the air; my cheeks burning bright red in the cold as my heart thrummed, trying to keep me warm. Mr Biers tried to help, putting the umbrella over me to protect me, but I simply gave him a grin, pulling on my waterproof, throwing the hood over my head with no regard as to how my hair looked.

I scooped the keys from the start up and gave them to him, and he smiled, shoving them protectively into his pocket as I grinned at Freddie through the window, making him wag his tail furiously, barking angrily at me for being able to escape the prison faster than he could.  
"Strange weather you're having around here" I laughed as I reached into the car, tugging out the clump of bags in the front seat, Mr Biers sighed, the umbrella shaking as he did so, turning to face me with his bright, beady eyes.  
"Yes, never seen so much sun." He sighed again, a look of grievance shadowing his possibly jolly face- before beginning to turn away to look again back to the warm shelter of the gas station where the rent-a-car service stood proudly with its sickly neon lights that were being beaten by the rain. I could tell he didn't have a great fondness of the rain, which was weird, seeing that this area was known for its wet weather. Perhaps, like me, he was new.

"I'll get my stuff, I'm sorry about this-." I apologised, gesturing to the rain and then to my things piled up in the back of the car, even though most of it was food and not actual luggage. Mr Biers just smiled politely and I felt even worse for holding him up in the rain- he obviously didn't like his job and I was making it worse. I felt wretched, and desperately tried to hurry up, making me fumble even more.  
I ran back around to the door and clambered back into the car, climbing over the front seats and grabbing Freddie's lead before snapping it onto his collar; scooping him tightly up into my arms as he wiggled, barking for his release whilst fiercely shaking his tail in hope he was going for a walk. I plopped him on the floor, and wildly looked around for something to tie Freddie to as I retrieved the rest of my luggage I had thrown into the car earlier that day, and was about to ask Mr. Biers when somebody said my name.

"Emma." I grinned and Freddie span in excitement, I turned and smile; face drowning in the tides of rain lashing against it, rosy and bright from blood rushing around; eyes stinging from the wind, hair damp from imaginary sweat and rain, curling in the damp.  
Uncle Charlie.  
"Uncle Charlie!" I half breathed, half laughed. His slightly sunken, pale face lit up momentarily at my greeting and I smiled, walking forward to greet him, and he gave me an awkward one armed hug which I couldn't help but turn into a full hug; Charlie stayed stiff and awkward, like he was a jumper being pulled askew over somebody's head, but I didn't mind, even when I was little he'd never been the best hugger, in fact, he didn't really like hugging at all, but I knew that he was still happy to see me, just as I was happy to see him.  
"Emma, it's great to see you." He said, glancing down as Freddie leapt up excitedly at him.

"And you too, er-." I smiled, picking up Freddie under one arm gently to allow him to see Charlie clearly, making him wiggle and put his paws on Charlie's chest, giving him a cheerful lick of the cheek from beneath the rug of soaked fur he was wearing.  
"Freddie." I finished for him and Charlie nodded, patting him on the head, trying to conceal a small grin. He glanced over to Mr. Biers who was trying to look nonchalant despite his obvious distaste for the weather and being held up. I offered an apologetic smile over to him, to whom he ignored, Charlie smiled down at me and then shrugged his shoulders at him and I chuckled.

"Want some help with the bags?" He asked and I nodded, Charlie calmly picked up Freddie who barked joyously at the attention from Charlie, who wrapped him in a jacket from his police cruiser and then put him in the back of the car, and then walked back over to help me.  
I smiled as between us, we easily managed the multiple plastic bags full of my 'emergency food resources', to which Charlie laughed and rolled his eyes at, and the two quite small suitcases, which snugly fitted in the back of the police car. Mr. Biers had quietly slunk back to the office to leave us be, and through the rain I felt a few tears begin to burn my eyes as the trunk slammed down over the suitcases.  
At first, I had tried to see the funny side of having my whole life bundled up in just two small suitcases…but as the rain soaked me to my clattering bones, Freddie's soft whines rattling out a haunting funeral like tune, the air thin and the morose thrum of the clouds pattering in a melancholy march on my shivering body fierce reality and realisation began to hungrily eat away at me, and I felt a few tears dribble out of my eyes to mingle with the sour rivers that were thirstily eating away at my stung skin. Charlie walked over, putting a hand awkwardly on my shoulder, as we both realised I was stood in the rain by the cruiser, staring into space.

"you okay?" He asked and I nodded, rubbing my eyes, turning to get into the cruiser.  
"Yeah, just got some rain in my eye" I knew that was one of the stupidest things I had ever said, I could feel myself wanting to groan at my own silliness but I kept pushing through with it, and I knew Charlie was staring at me, wanting to half laugh, half ask more to check I was okay, but I got into the car, breathing deeply- calming myself down.  
Freddie whined, pawing at my back, sensing something was wrong, but I simply ruffled his damp fur, giving a weak smile as his rough tongue consumed my tears, leaving me with a dry face; no trace nor trail that any tears had ever burnt their course like magma down it.  
"I found a really nice car for you, really cheap…I was hoping you'd take a look at it." Beamed Charlie as we set off, Mr. Biers' beady eyes watching us stealthily through the blinds, tapping repeatedly at the keys, locking the car where it now stood, groaning under the beat of the rain.  
"Really?" I asked half in shock and half in excitement- Uncle Charlie had never mentioned getting a car, it had never really crossed my mind that he would; although I probably should have. Charlie had been lovely, genuinely selfless about me moving to live with him, he had sorted everything out, registered me in a high school, with the state, and given me money for the plane tickets just to get here-even booked the car for me to drive from Seattle to Port Angeles.

I felt awful having nothing to repay him with, but he had nobly declined any pitiful amount I had offered him over the phone. I knew he would be confused as to why I would try to repay him when really; I had no other option to move to the small town of Forks.  
Forks is in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, and apparently is the rainiest town in all of the United States of America. I used to visit the little town with my parents to see Uncle Charlie for a month and a half every summer until I was fourteen, when the visits just weren't possible anymore… It would have been too much.  
"It's a truck actually, a Chevy." I smiled as the rain continued, but softer, the gentle drum of it on the cruiser making me a little drowsy.  
"Where'd you get it?"

"I got it from Billy, you remember him- don't you?" He asked and I smiled, nodding, pushing some damp fringe out of my eyes where it had been curling. I remembered that he would tell me the most amazing stories about wolves and old Indian legends when I got bored on the fishing trips Charlie and my parents would take me on, which could be quite often really- and I would play with his children, Rachel, Rebecca and Jacob, although their faces were just as murky and grimy in my memory as their names had been until I'd seen them on a photograph late one night when packing; I couldn't remember much else besides that…I'd buried quite a lot in the past, or tried to, at least, compared to other things; they weren't as important as some things I needed to remember.  
"Yeah, I do...he was in a…" I couldn't finish the sentence, I didn't want it sound so nonchalant but I couldn't say it any other way, and I really didn't want to sound uncaring.  
"Car crash, yeah." Finished Charlie and I bit my lip.  
"He's in a wheelchair now." Charlie continued, sensing the awkwardness and knowing I didn't know what to say.  
"So he can't drive anymore and offered to sell me his truck cheap." I smiled, I didn't care that it was cheap, the fact I was getting a car- well, a truck- was good, I had suspected I would have had to save up for one and borrow some money off Charlie when I was older and went to university, or college as they called it over here.

Still, I felt so grateful to Charlie, it wasn't guilt I was feeling but I was certainly feeling like he shouldn't have done this for me, that I was being enough of a problem without him feeling the need to do this for me. I just didn't know how to tell him. Admittedly, a part of me did wish he hadn't so I could save up for the car I wanted…well, motorbike I wanted, and now I'd be stuck with this truck out of wanting to be kind to Charlie, but the part that was simply overwhelmed with how selfless and kind and how brilliant he was and how nice the thought was simply consumed the other part of me.  
"What year is it?" I asked, glancing down into my lap to undo my coat, and I noticed he seemed to be calculating his answer and I wondered why he'd need to do so.  
"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine- it's only a few years old, really." I couldn't help but laugh, in my head I could see a rusting old thing clattering to the ground with me in it with a caveman stood beside it. Charlie tried to not look confused by my reaction, but it was clear that he was.  
"Alright, as long as it doesn't fall apart when I'm driving, it sounds good to me. But seriously Uncle Charlie, when did he buy it?" Charlie sighed, peeking over at me cautiously

"Well, 1984 I think." I raised an eyebrow  
"Was it new?" I smiled as Charlie squirmed, tapping his fingers on the wheel.  
"Well, err, no. It was new in the sixties, maybe late fifties at the earliest." I sighed, as much as I liked to think I was good with cars, I wasn't, and would I really be able to take care of something so old? I'd break it in the first five minutes.  
"But the thing runs great- they don't make them like that anymore." I smirked  
"Guess that applies to you too." I chuckled and Charlie sighed, smiling.  
"Was that an old joke?" he asked  
"No, I just made it up now." I giggled at my own joke and Charlie groaned jokingly, dragging a hand down his face, glancing over at me as though to say you have the weirdest sense of humour ever.  
For a moment, we sat in silence, the only sound was Freddie's snuffling as he slept in the back of the car, and the pattering of the rain on the roof of the car, neither of us knew what to say. I knew I was meant to say something at this point, like they did in the movies, but I just wasn't sure what.  
"Uncle Charlie…"I started, but broke off, feeling stupid and sentimental.

"Um…thank you. It's really nice of you to um, do all this for me…thanks." He stared ahead at the road, his tapping of the wheel intensifying and then dropping into silence. I stared out the window, feeling silly for saying such things, knowing Charlie, a little like me, didn't like expressing all of his emotions out loud.  
"I don't mind. I just want you to be happy here." He replied, still staring at the rumbling dark emerald green we were slowly entering and I smiled momentarily, glad that he was saddened or feeling awkward because of my thanking.  
"How's Renee?" I asked quietly, although they had only been married for a short while whilst I was very young, Renee had always kept in contact with my parents, and I adored her. She was harebrained in the most brilliant of ways, she, like me, always had something going on- when I saw her, it was not long before she would have a new idea, a new project to chase after in her bumbling manner. She was bright; the light seemed attracted to her as though she were a plant, green and lush, she simply absorbed warmth and brightness. Perhaps that's why she left Forks…because it was too dark for her to bloom.

"She's fine. She recently got remarried to a guy named Phil…nice guy, minor league baseball player." I smiled inwardly, I was glad Renee was happy, but equally, I was sad for Charlie, he really did deserve a beautiful woman, somebody who would stay beside him no matter what.  
"That's good. I should go visit her sometime." Charlie nodded silently and we both stared out of the windows again. We sat in silence for several more minutes as we began to catch up to the traffic, the gloom of twilight beginning to rise in the distance. I hadn't realised how long I had been driving.  
"You've changed your hair." Commented Charlie after a long while and I snapped out of the snooze I had been drifting into, dazed and confused.  
"Oh, yeah…I let it grow." I smiled, running my hand through it, reminding myself it was still there, still damp and curling messily because of the insistent rain that had attacked it before. My eyes began to droop again, heavy as though they were a dam about to break under the weight, and I felt my neck drop to the side to rest it, knowing it would be stiff when I woke up.  
"It's nice." He quietly added, and I wasn't sure it was because he didn't like expressing himself too outright, or because he could tell I was dozing off. It was probably the second one though.  
My eyes slipped to sleep under the emerald glow of Forks flying by outside, Charlie's jacket ending up wrapped around me, the thrum of the cruisers humming me to sleep… and I can promise you this…

I hadn't slept so well in three years.


End file.
